Providing quality telecommunication services to user groups which are classified as remote, such as rural telephone systems and telephone systems in underdeveloped countries, has proven to be a challenge in recent years. These needs have been partially satisfied by wireless radio services, such as fixed or mobile frequency division multiplex (FDM) systems, frequency division multiple access (FDMA) systems, time division multiplex (TDM) systems, time division multiple access (TDMA) systems, combination frequency and time division (FD/TDMA) systems, and other land mobile radio systems. Usually, these remote services are faced with more potential users than can be supported simultaneously by their frequency or spectral bandwidth capacity.
Recognizing these limitations, recent advances in wireless communications have used spread spectrum modulation techniques to provide simultaneous communication by multiple users. Spread spectrum modulation refers to modulating an information signal with a spreading code signal; the spreading code signal being generated by a code generator where the period Tc of the spreading code is substantially less than the period of the information data bit or symbol signal. The code may modulate the carrier frequency upon which the information has been sent, called frequency-hopped spreading, or may directly modulate the signal by multiplying the spreading code with the information data signal, called direct-sequence (DS) spreading. Spread-spectrum modulation produces a signal with bandwidth substantially greater than that required to transmit the information signal. Synchronous reception and despreading of the signal at the receiver recovers the original information. A synchronous demodulator in the receiver uses a reference signal to synchronize the despreading circuits to the input spread-spectrum modulated signal to recover the carrier and information signals. The reference signal can be a spreading code which is not modulated by an information signal. Such use of synchronous spread-spectrum modulation and demodulation for wireless communication is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,228,056 entitled “Synchronous Spread-Spectrum Communications System and Method” by Donald L. Schilling, which techniques are incorporated herein by reference.
Spread-spectrum modulation in wireless networks offers many advantages because multiple users may use the same frequency band with minimal interference to each user's receiver. Spread-spectrum modulation also reduces effects from other sources of interference. In addition, synchronous spread-spectrum modulation and demodulation techniques may be expanded by providing multiple message channels for a single user, each spread with a different spreading code, while still transmitting only a single reference signal to the user. Such use of multiple message channels modulated by a family of spreading codes synchronized to a pilot spreading code for wireless communication is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,166,951 entitled “High Capacity Spread Spectrum Channel” by Donald L. Schilling, which is incorporated herein by reference.
One area in which spread-spectrum techniques are used is in the field of mobile cellular communications to provide personal communication services (PCS). Such systems desirably support large numbers of users, control Doppler shift and fade, and provide high speed digital data signals with low bit error rates. These systems employ a family of orthogonal or quasi-orthogonal spreading codes, with a pilot spreading code sequence synchronized to the family of codes. Each user is assigned one of the spreading codes as a spreading function. Related problems of such a system are: supporting a large number of users with the orthogonal codes, handling reduced power available to remote units, and handling multipath fading effects. Solutions to such problems include using phased-array antennas to generate multiple steerable beams and using very long orthogonal or quasi-orthogonal code sequences. These sequences may be reused by cyclic shifting of the code synchronized to a central reference and diversity combining of multipath signals. Such problems associated with spread spectrum communications, and methods to increase the capacity of a multiple access, spread-spectrum system are described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,901,307 entitled “Spread Spectrum Multiple Access Communication System Using Satellite or Terrestrial Repeaters” by Gilhousen et al., which is incorporated herein by reference.
The problems associated with the prior art systems focus around reliable reception and synchronization of the receiver despreading circuits to the received signal. The presence of multipath fading introduces a particular problem with spread spectrum receivers in that a receiver must somehow track the multipath components to maintain code-phase lock of the receiver's despreading means with the input signal. Prior art receivers generally track only one or two of the multipath signals, but this method is not satisfactory because the combined group of low power multipath signal components may actually contain far more power than the one or two strongest multipath components. The prior art receivers track and combine the strongest components to maintain a predetermined bit error rate (BER) of the receiver. Such a receiver is described, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,109,390 entitled “Diversity Receiver in a CDMA Cellular Telephone System” by Gilhousen et al. A receiver that combines all multipath components, however, is able to maintain the desired BER with a signal power that is lower than that of prior art systems because more signal power is available to the receiver. Consequently, there is a need for a spread spectrum communication system employing a receiver that tracks substantially all of the multipath signal components, so that substantially all multipath signals may be combined in the receiver, and hence the required transmit power of the signal for a given BER may be reduced.
Another problem associated with multiple access, spread-spectrum communication systems is the need to reduce the total transmitted power of users in the system, since users may have limited available power. An associated problem requiring power control in spread-spectrum systems is related to the inherent characteristic of spread-spectrum systems that one user's spread-spectrum signal is received by another user's receiver as noise with a certain power level. Consequently, users transmitting with high levels of signal power may interfere with other users' reception. Also, if a user moves relative to another user's geographic location, signal fading and distortion require that the users adjust their transmit power level to maintain a particular signal quality. At the same time, the system should keep the power that the base station receives from all users relatively constant. Finally, because it is possible for the spread-spectrum system to have more remote users than can be supported simultaneously, the power control system should also employ a capacity management method which rejects additional users when the maximum system power level is reached.
Prior spread-spectrum systems have employed a base station that measures a received signal and sends an adaptive power control (APC) signal to the remote users. Remote users include a transmitter with an automatic gain control (AGC) circuit which responds to the APC signal. In such systems the base station monitors the overall system power or the power received from each user, and sets the APC signal accordingly. Such a spread-spectrum power control system and method is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,299,226 entitled “Adaptive Power Control for a Spread Spectrum Communications System and Method,” and U.S. Pat. No. 5,093,840 entitled “Adaptive Power Control for a Spread Spectrum Transmitter”, both by Donald L. Schilling and incorporated herein by reference. This open loop system performance may be improved by including a measurement of the signal power received by the remote user from the base station, and transmitting an APC signal back to the base station to effectuate a closed loop power control method. Such closed loop power control is described, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,107,225 entitled “High Dynamic Range Closed Loop Automatic Gain Control Circuit” by Wheatley, III et al., which is incorporated herein by reference.
These power control systems, however, exhibit several disadvantages. First, the base station must perform complex power control algorithms, increasing the amount of processing in the base station. Second, the system actually experiences several types of power variation: variation in the noise power caused by the variation in the number of users and variations in the received signal power of a particular bearer channel. These variations occur with different frequency, so simple power control algorithms can be optimized to compensate for only one of the two types of variation. Finally, these power algorithms tend to drive the overall system power to a relatively high level. Consequently, there is a need for a spread-spectrum power control method that rapidly responds to changes in bearer channel power levels, while simultaneously making adjustments to all users' transmit power in response to changes in the number of users. Also, there is a need for an improved spread-spectrum communication system employing a closed loop power control system which minimizes the system's overall power requirements while maintaining a sufficient BER at the individual remote receivers. In addition, such a system should control the initial transmit power level of a remote user and manage total system capacity.
Spread-spectrum communication systems desirably should support large numbers of users, each of which has at least one communication channel. In addition, such a system should provide multiple generic information channels to broadcast information to all users and to enable users to gain access to the system. Using prior art spread-spectrum systems this could only be accomplished by generating large numbers of spreading code sequences.
Further, spread-spectrum systems should use sequences that are orthogonal or nearly orthogonal to reduce the probability that a receiver locks to the wrong spreading code sequence or phase. The use of such orthogonal codes and the benefits arising therefrom are outlined in U.S. Pat. No. 5,103,459 entitled “System and Method for Generating Signal Waveforms in a CDMA Cellular Telephone System” by Gilhousen et al., and U.S. Pat. No. 5,193,094 entitled “Method and Apparatus for Generating Super-Orthogonal Convolutional Codes and the Decoding Thereof” by Andrew J. Viterbi, both of which are incorporated herein by reference. However, generating such large families of code sequences with such properties is difficult. Also, generating large code families requires generating sequences which have a long period before repetition. Consequently, the time a receiver takes to achieve synchronization with such a long sequence is increased. Prior art spreading code generators often combine shorter sequences to make longer sequences, but such sequences may no longer be sufficiently orthogonal. Therefore, there is a need for an improved method for reliably generating large families of code sequences that exhibit nearly orthogonal characteristics and have a long period before repetition, but also include the benefit of a short code sequence that reduces the time to acquire and lock the receiver to the correct code phase. In addition, the code generation method should allow generation of codes with any period, since the spreading code period is often determined by parameters used such as data rate or frame size.
Another desirable characteristic of spreading code sequences is that the transition of the user data values occur at a transition of the code sequence values. Since data typically has a period which is divisible by 2N, such a characteristic usually requires the code-sequence to be an even length of 2N. However, code generators, as is well known in the art, generally use linear feedback shift registers which generate codes of length 2N−1. Some generators include a method to augment the generated code sequence by inserting an additional code value, as described, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,228,054 entitled “Power-of-Two Length Pseudo-Noise Sequence Generator With Fast Offset Adjustment” by Timothy Rueth et al., which is incorporated herein by reference. Consequently, the spread-spectrum communication system should also generate spreading code sequences of even length.
Finally, the spread-spectrum communication system should be able to handle many different types of data, such as FAX, voiceband data and ISDN, in addition to traditional voice traffic. To increase the number of users supported, many systems employ encoding techniques such as ADPCM to achieve “compression” of the digital telephone signal. FAX, ISDN and other data, however, require the channel to be a clear channel. Consequently, there is a need for a spread spectrum communication system that supports compression techniques that also dynamically modify the spread spectrum bearer channel between an encoded channel and a clear channel in response to the type of information contained in the user's signal.